Warning -- this is about 9 pages long. At the end, there is some
information on LV Hilton point requirements for the different comp
levels.
Pre-Trip:
In January, my wife (E) told me we should try and go to Vegas in
mid/late February. She is in her final semester of law school and the
last few months have been particularly stressful
and since her
entire spring break will be consumed with some family obligations, she
knew she needed a "get-away" weekend to have some fun and
re-charge
her batteries.
Well, it's pretty easy to convince me to go to Vegas! So I
called up the Hilton and booked a room on one of the free room offers
they send me. Now to book the airfare
If you know well in
advance
when you want to go to Vegas and you watch the fares closely, you can
usually get tickets for less than $250 per person from Atlanta on any
flight you like. But if you decide 6 weeks out, you will almost
always end up paying in the $350+ range for flights at desirable
times. When I checked, rates were no lower than $325. So I pulled
out my Delta "Companion Flies Free" voucher (which really
means
2-for-$400 plus fees) and we were all set.
Now it was just a matter of waiting for the time to come
Wednesday, February 16:
A co-worker (Judy) comes to me and asks if I will gamble a bit for
her. She says she is willing to spend $100
so I ask her what
level of risk/reward she wants to shoot for. After talking for a bit,
we decide that I will play an hour of $0.25 9/6 JoB for her. I
explained that there was about a 20% chance that I would lose it
all
and most likely, she would lose $25-75. But she was all for
it,
so I agreed. Hey, it's free points for me!
That night, E and I pack our bags. I go ahead and check us in to the
flight online since it is so simple and we are not checking any bags
anyway.
Now, our dog (Harley) is neurotic. And he seems to be psychic. He
hates the idea of us leaving him for even an hour, let alone going out
of town. And he just *knows* when we are leaving. He does not have
to see/hear us pack
or see the bags
he just knows. So we had
to spend the evening entertaining him, but he seemed to be ok.
Thursday, February 17:
Wake up at 5:30. Ouch. This is simply too early to be awake! At
times like this, I really envy those of you that are closer to Vegas.
The flight from Atlanta is easy, but the combination of a 4+ hour
flight and the time difference really messes you up on a short trip.
Ah well, I hit the shower and take care of Harley while E takes a
shower. At this point, Harley realizes what is going on and starts
whining up a storm. Nothing will calm him down, so we get out of the
house as fast as possible. A friend will be coming in the evening to
house-sit for him. Since she left her key here the last time she came
over, we leave the garage door unlocked
After a simple trip to and through the Atlanta airport, we are on our
way to Vegas. About 4 hours later, we land in Vegas, quickly get
through the terminal (I always enjoy seeing the desert animal statues
howdy Snake, Lizard, and Scorpion!) and jump on the monorail.
At this point E asks me "why they can get the airport monorail to
work without issue, but they have so many problems with the strip
monorail. Disney has a monorail that works perfectly (but requires
drivers) and tons of airports have computerized train systems. We
don't see them breaking down all the time
why did they feel a
need to
re-design something that already works well?" The engineer in me
wants to come up with a good answer, but all I could do was shrug.
We hop a cab to the Hilton and check in. No upgrades are possible due
to a convention
and since we are there at 11am, the room is not
ready for us yet. So we check our bags, grab a snack, and hit the
casino. We head right for the SportsBook to play some $0.25 9/6.
I'm
up and down, but end up even after an hour with 2 quads. Meanwhile, E
is down, down, down for the first half hour. Then in the second
half-hour, she gets quad happy hitting 5 times to win $40.
We check on the room and it is ready
so we get our bags and bring
them up and settle in for a bit. The room is plain, but nice enough.
The view is straight at Wynn
wow does that place look
incredible!
After a nap, we head back to the casino where we each lose $100 in
less than an hour at $0.25 9/6.
While playing, we get a phone call. The house sitter is calling to
let us know that she accidentally locked the garage door when she was
trying to open it
so she is locked out of the house. Uh-oh
Harley is a great dog and never has accidents, but he has been inside
for over 12 hours without a bathroom break. E calls another friend
that lives right around the corner and he says he is tied up at work
but will break away as fast as possible. About 30 minutes later, we
hear back that he got over there and let the house sitter
in
catastrophe averted.
Of course, our concentration is completely broken, so we get another
quick bite to eat and try a little more play. I break even again and
E loses another $60 or so. The season premier of Survivor is about to
start, so we both head up to watch it.
The premier was quite entertaining
nice little twists.
Afterwards, I
realize just how tired I am and decide to call it quits for the day.
The first point of this trip is to recharge the batteries
and
there
will be plenty of time to gamble the rest of the trip. So we watch
CSI and get some sleep.
Thursday Results:
E: ($120.00)
K: ($100.00)
Friday, February 18:
Initially, the plan for this day was to rent a car and drive out to
the Valley of Fire for the morning and then head to the Palms in the
afternoon. We were also considering heading downtown for the evening
to see the Freemont Street Experience since neither of us has even
made it downtown before (in my 5 prior trips and E's 3 prior
trips).
Anyway, I wake up just after 6 and go to the window
boy are those
clouds menacing looking! It's not looking good for our plans.
Since I
figure it will be a while before E wakes up, I head down to the casino
to put in some play. I hit the 9/6 machines again
and in 10
minutes,
the thing has swallowed $50. Now, I play pretty quickly
around
800
hands per hour. But to lose 40 bets in 10 minutes is quite a bad
little run. So I decide to look over the odds posted at the
SportsBook. When I gamble by myself, I tend to break off my losing
runs a little more quickly than when I gamble with E.
I looked over some of the sports futures specifically college
hoops and football but I really could not find much of
interest. So
I decided to blow a few bucks on the slots. Some of those games
really are interesting even if I never can win anything. I lost $15,
but at least it took 45 minutes or so.
I went back up to the room to check on E. She was just waking and
looked out the window to see that the sky was getting really
ugly
we
were going to have to change our plans. So we decided to stay at the
Hilton for the morning and spend the afternoon at the Palms. So down
for some breakfast and then we hit to Pick'Em machines at the
SportsBook bar. Now
I enjoy playing Pick'Em. And I play it
virtually
perfectly on WinPoker. But when I play in a casino, I do nothing but
lose, lose, lose. But E has great luck most of the time. It seems
that between the two of us, we do better than expected at
Pick'Em
but
I am way down on the negative side of the curve while she is
freakishly on the positive side. This session was not really all that
different. In about 45 minutes, she won $70 while I lose $60.
Off to the Palms. E and I really like the Palms. The atmosphere is
great, they have some good VP, and we both just feel comfortable
there. Plus we seem to get great cocktail service there
certainly
much better than we get at the Hilton. (Based on most people's
comments, we might be the exception on this one.)
I had a coupon for $10 in free play for new accounts. I already had
an account there, but E did not. So we signed her up and went off to
play on the penny 50-play 9/6 JoB machine. The basic plan was to get
300 points on each of our cards to get two $10 discount certificates
for Garduno's.
She slipped the free play into the one available machine and I watched
her play. She went up a bit and then we kind of swapped back and
forth. Eventually, I hit a royal ($40) and we were up a bit. After
we hit the 1000 point mark (still with about $25), I slipped a $20
into the next machine over and started to play as well. I was able to
play for about an hour-and-a-half before my money ran out
but E
was
still going strong with about $85 now. She still had never hit a
royal
when suddenly we noticed the machine had $120 in credits on
it. She must have hit one in the prior few hands and we did not even
notice. Neither of us really counts these 50-play penny royals as the
same as a "real" royal, but it was still nice to each hit
one. She
cashed out when the machine was back down to $100
so her $10 in
free
play became: $100 in cash; $10 off at Gardunos; and nearly 2500
points. Not bad.
We got our dining certs and ate at Gardunos. E decided she wanted to
spent a little time on the FPDW progressive
but her luck was not
the
same on those machines and she lost $50 in a half hour. While she was
playing, a guy on the penny slots right next to us hit for 100,000
credits. I spoke to him for a few minutes and he said the day before
he had hit for 50,000 credits. Not a bad weekend trip for him!
At this point, it was a little after 5 and we decided to punt on going
downtown. Instead, we went over to the Rio to see the Masquerade in
the Sky show. Neither of us had ever been to the Rio, so this was a
nice thing to see. Since the first show was not until 6:30, we had
some time to blow and just walked around a bit. While walking, E saw
a penny slot called "Sea Monkeys." E *loves* frogs and
monkeys. So
she had to play. On one of her first few spins, she went into some
bonus round where the machine auto-spins for free and you win
credits
well, she kept "winning" a higher and higher
multiplier, but
she barely ever hit for any credits. I think the multiplier got up to
about 19 with 6 spins to go, but she did not hit for a single winning
spin after that. I would have happily traded some of that multiplier
for winning spins!
Eventually, the show started and we had some fun. It was definitely
worth seeing. It was not the knockout spectacle I have seen written
up in some reviews, but definitely entertaining.
From there, we decided to go to the Hard Rock. I'd been there
before, but E had not. I remembered it being a fun place to hang out.
Boy has my view changed! Maybe I am just getting old
or married
life
has changed the way I see things. But this was just not my kind of
place anymore. We quickly lost the $10 free play and another $10 on a
quarter 9/6 machine
then I lost two $10 BJ matchplay coupons. We
got
our free shot glass (as a gift for my brother who collects them) and
got outta there.
Back to the Hilton for the night. We hit the Pick'Em machines
again
and my poor luck continued. At least I got 90 minutes out
of my
$100. In the same span, E lost $25. We both decided to turn in early
once again
this time we watched Numb3rs and went to sleep.
Friday Results:
E: $65
K: ($255)
"Joint" play: ($10)
Saturday, February 19:
We were up around 7:00 and I ran down and grabbed us some drinks and
pastries. Around 8:30 we headed down and tried our luck at
Pick'Em
again. What can I say
I am a glutton for punishment! We each
slipped
$100 into a machine
and in 45 minutes, I was dry again. E was
hanging
around her initial buy-in, so I went off to play some Spin Poker. I
know it is not full pay (8/6 JoB), but I enjoy the game sometimes, so
I figured what the heck? I'm losing at all the full pay machines
anyway! I played for about an hour and cashed out even. See
who
needs full pay? :^)
E was still playing on her $100 buy-in. She did eventually lose it,
but she got 3 hours on the same amount that lasted me 45 minutes
E decided to head up to the room for a little while 3 hours is
about her limit at any one time. I sat down at a 9/6 machine and won
$50 in about a half hour. So I decided it was now or never for
playing my friend's money. I cashed out my ticket and slipped a
fresh
$100 into the machine. After about 20 minutes, I was up $70. I
bounced around for a while
and after 45 minutes, I was up $50. I
figured Judy would be happy with that, so I cashed her ticket out and
headed up to the room.
After resting for a bit, we both headed back to the casino and some
more 9/6. After a few minutes, I noticed my beloved Virginia
Cavaliers were on, so I stopped playing and went to watch the game. E
kept playing and after an hour had lost her $100. So she decided to
switch back to Pick'Em. Given her luck there, she should stick
with it all the time!
Eventually, Virginia managed to lose a game they definitely should
have won (good-bye Pete Gillen) and I joined her at the Pick'Em
machines. Right after I got there, E hit 4 tens and was up nicely. I
slipped $100 in and watched it drain away. $50 down in about 150
hands
I was happy because E wanted to stop playing to get a good
seat
to watch the Kentucky game. She was up $100 I love that she
wins at
Pick'Em, but I would like to get SOME of that luck once in a
while! I
hit cashout and coins start dropping
then it seems to get stuck
and no
more coins are coming. Suddenly, the counter starts going again
indicating that quarters are being paid out, but nothing is coming out
of the machine. Then it freezes us and indicates a jam.
I've never had any such problems before, so I don't know what
to
expect. When I call the service guy over and explain the situation to
him, he promises they will take care of me. We "bet" on how
many
coins the machine miscounted he takes 10 and I say 6. After the
repair guy fixes the machine, it drops the rest of the coins and we go
to the cashier
and it comes up 6 coins shy of the $50 I should
get.
He tells her to give me $50 I have to give everyone involved an
A+
for customer service on this one.
At half-time, we decide it really is not much of a game and we can
play at the bar and play Pick'Em and watch the game. Much better
than
just watching the game. So we start playing again. After a few
hands, I overhear the beginnings of what would turn out to be a truly
entertaining conversation
Drunk to nobody in particular: Man they have these poker games rigged
tight!
My neighboring player: The poker games are random.
Drunk: You think so? They ain't really random and I have 15 years
experience to prove it!
Neighbor: Nevada law says they have to be random.
Me: He's right. That's the law.
Drunk: Maybe they are kinda random. But let me tell you
something
the have this Gap Chip.
Neighbor and Me: A what chip?
Drunk: A Gap Chip. [Note: it was later determined in my conversation
with my neighbor (Sac Paul), that it must actually be GAAP Chip where
GAAP = Gaming Approved Asset Procurement.] You see, they want to win
between 5% and 10% of all money put into a machine. This chip
guarantees that this will always be the case.
Sac Paul: For slots what you say is basically true, but it is not the
case for video poker.
Drunk: Let me tell you something. I have 15 years experience to prove
this and you would be a fool to believe otherwise. It is just like
with Blackjack where the casinos pay people to bet the minimum at 3rd
base and play badly because it hurts everyone else.
Sac Paul and Me: What? No way do casinos do that. And the 3rd base
play does not hurt everyone else. Sometimes it helps; sometimes it
hurts. In the end it is neutral.
Drunk: Let me tell you something (this is easily his favorite
phrase!), I have 15 years experience (his second favorite phrase) to
prove that their bad play hurts you a lot more than it helps! You are
obviously blinded by the casinos. You better learn from someone like
me before it's too late!
At this point, the drunk says something to another person and stumbles
off. Just a guess, but I think he went and played some blackjack so
he could yell at the 3rd baseman for a while!
Paul and I chatted for a while and I really did not play much at all.
In 2 hours, I probably played 20 hands and broke even a
monumental
victory for me! Meanwhile, Elizabeth hit 2 more 4 of a kinds and
after 2 hours she cashed out a $250 win. I know she has played a lot
more hands than me at Pick'Em (partially because the money drains
away
like water down a drain when I am playing), but she now has hit 4 of a
kind 5 times
plus she has a straight flush. I've only rarely
even hit
a full house.
We say bye to Paul and go grab a bite to eat. We come back to play
some Pick'Em, but all of the machines are taken. So we hit the
9/6
instead. In an hour of play, I break even and E loses $60. We decide
it is time to call it a day
Saturday results:
E: $90
K: ($105)
"Judy": $50
Sunday, February 20:
Last day in Vegas. We have to check out by noon
and our plane
back to
Atlanta leaves at 4:30. So we are up early and I am ready before E.
Unlike the last 2 days, the weather actually looks decent outside. We
might have nice weather for flying home!
I head down to play while E gets ready and I hit the 9/6 machines. In
the 30 minutes I am by myself, I drop about $30. E gets there and we
both move over to the Pick'Em machines. Obviously, I am mentally
challenged because I could probably get them to give me more
"free"
stuff if I just handed them money than I earn in points at
Pick'Em,
but I am determined to find a way to win at this game. Even if it
kills me!
So we each plug $100 into the machines and E plays a hand. Her screen
is cloudy from crud on the surface, so she gets a handi-wipe and
starts cleaning it...but she does not realize there is a cashout
button on the screen and hits it and the coins all start tumbling out.
Since the game hates me anyway, I swap seats with her and wait for
the coins to finish falling. In the end, 391 coins fall out. Huh?
400 were put in and 5 were lost on the one hand played. What is this
391 stuff? I call someone over and tell them what happened and they
give me 4 coins without a hitch. (Another A+ for customer service!)
I start playing by dropping the coins into the machine. Every play
starts with 5 new coins, so after dropping all the coins, I will know
exactly how I did. Well
after all the coins are in, I have just
235
coins left. This means in 79 hands, I lost another $40. I keep
playing until I hit a 3 of a kind to get back to 200 credits. Then I
lose the next 15 hands in a row. I bounce around for a while and
slide to 50 credits before hitting a 3 of a kind again to get to 75
credits
and again I lose 15 in a row to bust out. Man this game
hates me!
E was not having her usual luck she lost $50 in 90 minutes. She
decided to call it a trip (for VP at least) and cashed out her coins
and took them to the cashier. The machine said it spit out 200
coins
but the cashier's machine only counted 199. Not a good
weekend
for the bar-top machines coin hoppers. I tossed a quarter in from my
pocket to keep the payout round.
We had a $10 ticket and saw a slot game called "Tailgate
Party." We
are both big football fans and decided to give it a shot. It is a
pretty good game with 3 special features: a lame cheerleader
scatter-type thing; a so-so tailgate party game; and a really cool
game where you call plays to try and move the football down the field.
We hit the cool game 4 times
the first time we turned it over on
downs, the second time we kicked a long field goal. The 2 remaining
times, we got to the 1 yard line and it forced us to kick field
goals
I would have been happier going for the touchdown to see
what
happens!
Ah well, we got over an hour on that $10, so we were happy. Time to
get washed up and checked out of the room. After checking out, we hit
the Hilton brunch buffet. It was much better than the last time we
went there, so maybe we just had a bad experience our first time.
After lunch, I got E to play some blackjack. She has always been
nervous about blackjack because it intimidates her. I sat at 3rd base
(what would Mr. GAAP Chip think?) and she sat beside me. I gave her a
basic strategy card and helped her read the right moves from it (I
know the strategy cold). We each started with a winning
matchplay
then we played for about 75 minutes and ended up even
after
tips. E had a blast and decided she wants to spend more time playing
blackjack in the future. So now I have her hooked on VP, BJ, and Pai
Gow (though we did not play this trip). Slowly but surely we are
getting all the games in there!
It was time to head out, so we went by the MegaBucks machine for one
glorious shot at millions. We each took a spin
naturally hitting
nothing. Oh well
who really needs $12 million anyway?
The airport shuttle was there right as we headed out, so we took that
instead of a taxi. At the airport, we quickly checked in and went
through security. The airport was fairly empty it was the day
before President's Day, so most people were sticking around
and we
got through in no time. While walking through the terminal, we heard
a final boarding announcement for an earlier flight
so we rushed
to
the gate to see it we could get on. For $25 each, we would be home 90
minutes earlier
hell yes we'll take it!
The flight was mostly uneventful until about 45 minutes from
Atlanta
when we hit the same storm that had ruined our Friday
plans.
It was a bumpy ride the rest of the trip, but not too bad. The pilot
really did a good job keeping things steady. Soon enough, we were
home and the puppy was thrilled.
All-in-all it was a great trip. I just wish Pick'Em did not hate
me
so much!
Sunday results:
E: ($50)
K: ($132)
"Joint" play: ($16)
Trip totals:
E: ($15)
K: ($592)
Joint: ($26)
Judy: $50
If you got this far, I hope you enjoyed the reading. As I said
before, the main purpose of the trip was rest and
relaxation
mission
accomplished! The secondary goal was 800 points (our first trip to
the Hilton netted ~500 points and the second 792 points)...mission
accomplished! We should have no problem continuing to get free room
offers going forward and they will be tough to pass up.
Some additional information:
Points earned (Hilton): 874 -> $26,220 if assume all play is VP
Comps earned: about $40 -> ~0.15% comp rate
Statistical Data (omits penny 50-play results):
-- 12/174 2-pr draws turned into Full Houses (9/6 only). This is
slightly below the 14-15 expected. On these draws, I was short at
least 70 coins.
-- 1/100 3-of-a-kind draws turned into 4-of-a-kind (this includes 9/6
and PE). On average, this should happen every 23 draws. I figure I
was short two at 9/6 (250 coins) and one at PE (600 coins).
-- Adding in the 920 coins from these draws, my results would be a
whole lot better!
Conversation with Host:
At the end of the trip, I spoke with one of the hosts. My goal was to
find out the current requirements for C5 and C4. She did not want to
come out and tell me anything directly, but while she was looking at
her sheet, I peeked over and then she showed me
C5 requires 250
points
($7500 coin-in) per day; C4 requires 600 points ($18,000 coin-in) per
day. C3 requires 1000 points ($30,000 coin-in) per day. I did not
see what the requirements are for C2 or C1